MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Friday, April 5 – Silver Sluggers!

Welcome to the Friday edition of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots, a fantasy baseball column focused on helping you find the best core lineup for this slate of DFS action!

For those of you finding us for the first time, the concept behind MLB DFS Picks and Pivots is to give you a first look at the day’s MLB DFS slate, including our top picks, plays and pivots, using FantasyDraft pricing as a reference to help you build your best fantasy baseball line-up and win big.

Picks and Pivots is not a simple “best plays” column but rather it focuses on slate strategy and roster construction to help give you insight into how I will look to play this slate.

Thursday’s MLB DFS split slates provided some big time pitching performances and offensive outbursts as on small slates like these, it was critical to hit on the 1-2 big plays while equally important – avoiding the slate duds. The Main Slate was all about avoiding Matt Harvey at nearly 50% ownership who gave you -5 fantasy points and loading up on as many Rangers bats as you could who along with the Braves, combined for 20 runs on the night. While the Early Slate had the bigger name arms, it was a pair of bats in Gleyber Torres and Stephen Piscotty, that both went for 35+ fantasy points as the must have bats of the afternoon.

Picks and Pivots is not a simple “best plays” column but rather it focuses on slate strategy and roster construction to help give you insight into how I will look to play this slate. The goal of this article is to dig through the slate, highlight our top plays and help you identify the best slate strategy across your MLB DFS line-ups.

If you are looking to try out a new DFS site, head on over to FantasyDraft and enter my referral code for 10% rake back on your entries.

As always, we will look to update our final lineup thoughts throughout the day on our twitter account @FantasyCPR so make sure to give us a follow for all the late breaking lineup news.

Without further ado, let’s get into today’s slate!

MLB DFS – Friday MLB Slate Breakdown:

We have an 8 game Main Slate in Major League Baseball on Friday with one game (Phillies/Twins) looking like a stay away spot to to all day rain that is forecasted to stay heavy throughout the game time window which means we could have a 7 game slate on our hands.

At first glance in looking at this slate, you will notice we lack on front-end “name” arms with Collin McHugh and Rick Porcello stepping in as the two highest priced arms to build around. Any time we have a slate like this that lacks a bona-fide ace with elite K upside, I typically start my pitcher research from the bottoms up – rather than simply settle on an arm like Porcello (who we can always come back to later in our builds), let’s dive into the bargain bin first to see if there are some value arms we like more.

Trent Thornton ($11.7K) is the lowest priced arm on the slate as he takes on the Indians and Shane Bieber, who I expect will be one of the higher owned pitchers due to his match-up with the offensively challenged Blue Jays which makes using Thornton an interesting leverage spot.

The Jays right-hander was exceptional in his first start of 2019 against the Tigers where he struck out 8 batters, walking none, giving up only 2 hits in a 26 fantasy point shutout of Detroit. The control and 12% swinging strike rate in that game stand out and his AAA numbers seem to back his upside as he had a 23.6% K rate with only a 6% BB rate at that level in 2018.

Thornton relies heavily on a mid 90’s heater and a NASTY curveball – one he threw over 32% of the time against the Tigers and look at some of these swing and misses he got in that outing.

With Jose Ramirez leaving last night’s game with a foot injury, it is very possible this watered down Indians line-up could be without its one constant which even furthers the case to roll out Thornton again on this slate. There is very real K upside here as he showed against Detroit in the opener and that he flashed in AAA last season with two starts in his last ten where he racked up 10 + strikeouts.

Pablo Lopez ($12.9K) is the second cheapest arm on this slate who like Thornton was exceptional in his 2019 debut, striking out 7 Rockies in 5+ innings on his way to 20+ fantasy points. Lopez garnered an elite 18% swinging strike rate in that outing with some nasty movement on his arsenal that made a strong Rockies line-up chase pitches outside the zone routinely.

Lopez’s curveball and change-up have drew 16% swinging strike rates in 2018 and these are the secondary pitches he is throwing nearly 50% of the time to offset his fastball. With that kinda of ability to miss bats, at this price point, I think we simply have to take notice. Now unlike Thornton who could get a Jose Ramirez-less Indians team, this Braves line-up is not one we typically go out of our way to pick on so the match-up may leave something to be desired but I think the price point is reflective of the risk with Lopez here.

If you opt to double punt on this slate with two arms that have demonstrated swing and miss ability, you would have over $9.4K remaining for the 8 batters in your line-up which gives you a path to essentially any and every bat you could possibly want here tonight  – a route that without any must have aces, I think is absolutely viable here this evening.

MLB DFS – Building around the bats:

With the context that we are punting at pitcher with K upside, we are going to be spending up on bats – the premier bats – across our line-up tonight and that all starts with Mike Trout ($10.2K) who is the second most expensive hitter on the slate behind Bryce Harper, in a game we expect will not end up playing.

If you have read Picks and Pivots before, you know I love me some narrative and tonight we get a chance to rock the player bobble head narrative with a “TROUTSTANDING GIVEAWAY” – I mean come on, how do you not love that? Trout is always going to be the ultimate one-off for me on FantasyDraft where you are required to roster hitters from three teams – so we can find out top two stacks and use Trout as our “one-off” play every time – tonight against RHP Lance Lynn and with the salary we have to burn, Trout is an easy plug and play.

The Red Sox and Astros are two offenses that have been slow out of the gate but it is hard to argue that there are more dangerous stacks available to us with lineups loaded with elite hitters and with match-ups against Zack Godley and Frankie Montas, there is nothing to stop us from thinking tonight is the night they break out.

The knock on Montas has always been his struggles with lefties as he has given up a .279 ISO and 42% HC rate to LHB since the start of 2017 – the issue is the Astros only have 1-2 lefties in Michael Brantley and Josh Reddick to really take advantage of the splits. I wonder if that splits difference against a right-handed heavy Astros line-up will keep the core plays here under-owned  – Alex Bregman, Jose Altuve, George Springer and Carlos Correa – with the first three all being priced above $9K on FantasyDraft.

As much as Montas has been able to limit the power to right-handers, this is not a swing and miss arm – as he had only a 17% K rate in 2018 against RHB so the ball is going to be put in play and with his xFIP and SIERA sitting a full run higher than his ERA in 2018, it tells me regression is coming which could hit tonight with an All-Star lineup facing him in Houston.

Zack Godley is not someone who we would consider a gas can by any stretch for DFS purposes but with a near 5 ERA and a double-digit walk rate, this is also not an arm we should avoid when we look at the pure talent level of the Red Sox hitters. There is nothing to say about guys like Mookie Betts and J.D. Martinez that has not been said before and much like is the case with Trout tonight, you are simply making the case to load up on the best hitters in baseball against a slate full of mediocre arms.

What is interesting about this all hitter approach is that it may not be a popular take when you consider that no team on the slate as an implied run total (IRT) of 5 or higher. In DFS and MLB DFS specifically, those Vegas totals always tend to drive ownership and stack focus so on a night where the Red Sox (4.6) and Houston (4.6) have high run totals in the context of the slate, this is not one of those 5-6 IRT’s we have seen early on with the Yankees bats for example that pushes ownership to them in droves.

MLB DFS – Sample Lineup and Slate Overview:

Please note – this sample lineup is not meant to be a plug and play lineup and should be used for illustrative purposes only. 

More from FanSided

• Thunder projected lineup and rotations heading into 2023-24 season
• NWSL Challenge Cup news: Courage ruthless against Washington, Racing remain perfect
• 2023 Women’s World Cup: Ary Borges and Brazil showed the entire world what they are about
• Trea Turner’s rough season goes from bad to worse
• Brewers attempt to troll Elly De La Cruz backfires 456 feet

SP: Pablo Lopez

SP: Trent Thornton

IF: Jose Altuve

IF: Carlos Correa/Rafael Devers

IF: Alex Bregman

OF: George Springer

OF: Michael Brantley

OF: Mike Trout

UTIL: Mookie Betts

UTIL: J.D. Martinez

Slate Overview: As I said to open this column, there were no arms on this slate that I felt like were must-haves – building blocks we had to prioritize – and as such it felt like searching for K upside and point per dollar value was the right approach. There is clearly risk in unproven starters like Lopez and Thornton but there is also K upside, demonstrated K upside, and that is something I think we can anchor to in a hitting heavy lineup.

With Mike Trout as a high dollar one-off you can mix and match the Red Sox and Astros stacks here – capturing two of the best stacks talent wise on the board – and hope that tonight you get the firepower that pushes you past the field that may opt for a more balanced roster approach.

Stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest MLB DFS news and analysis each and every day across FantasyDraft, FanDuel and DraftKings!